In any community there will be loud people, and quiet people. People with a lot of knowledge, people with little knowledge. These will combine themselves in interesting ways. I'd rather leave it up to individuals to decide whom to listen to, and whom to ignore.

Maybe if the forums had a rating system, so we could + / - people we thought were helpful. Those with much knowledge would get brought up by the many people who found their information useful.

Having to answer a quiz like "What's the recommended serial voltage for an XBee?" before you could register for the forums would certainly have driven me away from what I've found to be a really wonderful community.

There's never going to be a perfect signal to noise ratio. So far, the signal here far outstrips the noise.

It is safe to assume that some of the artists, designers, and hobbyists interested in using the Arduino have never participated in a technical forum. It is also safe to assume that some of the intended audience have never connected a computer to the physical world, don't know the terminology, aren't skilled in the nuances of the English language, etcetera.

I've participated in a few online forums for ... let's just say a few years. I have some familiarity with programming and microcontrollers.

This is the first technical forum I've found that didn't have some sort of guidelines for the first time user. It took me about an hour to understand where things should go, how replying worked (e.g. replies are not threaded), how to include code, etcetera. I found out about http://arduino.pastebin.com/ purely by accident.

If I had difficulty getting started, imagine how intimidating it would be for someone starting from scratch? I'm afraid the lack of initial guidance turns away talented folks who otherwise would be willing to participate.

Quote

I propose:C) writing a list of rules and expecations in a concise text, written by someone with authority

While I certainly do not claim to be someone with authority, I will propose the first rule...

* Replies should not contain less than 10 characters. 'Thanks' and such are ok though. Although 'Thank you for your help' should be doable by everyone ;0)

* Code, no matter how it was posted, should always have context. Without knowing whats going on help is very hard to achieve

* "Use search/google" Answers should be banned and burned completely. There is nothing more pi**ing someone off than such answers. I know there is always a lot of redundancy in the questions people ask, but for that should be..

* ... a sticky post in EVERY subforum containing links to some sort of peer generated FAQ as well as Playground/wiki. this FAQ should contain the most asked 100 questions or so...

Believe me, Mike, I calculated the odds of this succeeding against the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid[ch8230] and I went ahead

So some kid goes screaming through our quiet little town and now we talk about making rules.

The rules will be generated based on the most vocal pet peeves that some have. A list will be compiled that will never go anywhere because there is no one to coordinate it, implement it, and enforce it.

Should the rules somehow be implemented, the result will be rules that are never read by people who occasionally come screaming through our quiet little town.

"Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom."~ Clifford Stoll

Posts: 405Denver Re: Forum EtiquetteReply #50 - 16.05.2009 at 19:00:01 So some kid goes screaming through our quiet little town and now we talk about making rules.

The rules will be generated based on the most vocal pet peeves that some have. A list will be compiled that will never go anywhere because there is no one to coordinate it, implement it, and enforce it.

Should the rules somehow be implemented, the result will be rules that are never read by people who occasionally come screaming through our quiet little town. Back to top --------------------------------------------------------------------------------There are 10 types of people - those who know binary, and those who don't.Personal Message | WWW IP Logged

george_graves

YaBB Newbies

Offline

Arduino rocks

Posts: 38

Re: Forum EtiquetteReply #51 - Yesterday at 02:16:00 That's why a moderator is needed to ban the idiot before too many of the town folks start chasing after the idiot screaming through our little town!

if your talking about me, im not used to being in a adult community, dont flame me cuz im not used to it.

i alrighty got a nub sweraing at me and up my butt, i dont need any more >_>

A list will be compiled that will never go anywhere because there is no one to coordinate it, implement it, and enforce it.

The list is not, or rather; would not be, the problem. The lack of someone who can enforce it is.

Quote

Should the rules somehow be implemented, the result will be rules that are never read by people who occasionally come screaming through our quiet little town.

The screamers are not the problem that this thread tries to set a focus on.It would me much simpler for people to contribute if they could read a summary on the arduino way, and then behave as expected.

Quote

...im not used to being in a adult community, dont flame me cuz im not used to it.

I think this is a key fact.

Maybe a 'Read this before posting!' sticy would've 'helped', but then again, maybe not.

Never the less, I really want a set of rules or guidelines. It would make things a lot simpler.

Yes, I agree. By all means, set up some rules of etiquette.How about a rule that covers unanswered questions. Questions that go unanswerd for days, while others before and after are receiving several replies and discussion. Certainly with all the technical knowledge on this board, no question should go unanswered.

Can't somebody monitor these things. If for some reason the question is unanswerable, or, more likely, nobody wants to, a monitor could just tell the questioner, "Sorry, we can't answer your question", or "Sorry nobody wants to answer your question.", or try to find out why the question remains unanswered.

For example, "SD/MMC from the ground up" received a flurry of interest at first, with many of the arduino 'gurus' (gurus in the midst) asking several questions and adding lots of discussion, indicating that they had it down pat. Later, when someone asked questions about the subject, he received no replies. He was practically begging for help, still, after days, no response. I thought it would be helpful to post a question, in bar sports, as to what happened to the interest in "SD/MMC from ground up", and mentioned that someone was seeking help with the subject. No response to that either.

I advised the person to post a question directly with the author of the subject, and I sent a message to the author as well, asking him to help. Well, the author responded and helped the young person get his system in operation. The young person sent a message to me, thanking me for my help.

'Gurus in the midst', indeed it should be 'gurus in the mist'. I get the impression that the gurus have an inordinate control over this board. Yes, I understand that they have a vast store of technical knowledge, and they are the ones that know the answers, which makes me wonder why they refuse to answer questions sometimes. Its almost as if everyone waits for one of them to answer first, and therefore give the nod that its alright to answer this question. Often what happens is that some upstart newbie will give it a shot, and try to help.

One of the posts put out, sometime back, stated that nobody has to answer a question if he doesn't want to. Fussing and fuming about the bad manners of an 11 year old kid, I consider the refusal to answer a question asked, by someone seeking help, as bad manners.

By the way, I'm a 65 year old upstart, smartbutt newbie, have posted questions (some answered, some not), and have tried to help other newbies when I could. I've also posted statements that apparently annoyed one or more of the oldtimers. (one in particular), so you can put me in the same category as you have placed the 11 year old.

For what its worth, anyone thats taken from Arduino .. like me, tries to "put back in" when the opportunity arises. At least, thats what I've observed in my time here.

After you've been here for a while and found your way around the Arduino-jargon, it becomes easier finding answers yourself using the search, provided you know to use the "home page google search", not the forum search.

When I was new, I had trouble knowing "how" to ask the right question without sounding stupid due to my greenness. But the only reason I asked "sometimes", is because I didn't know what to search for, and at the time, the google search hadn't been implemented.

Most people that have been here a while and have something to contribute, will help others time and opportunity permitting. Otherwise, some people swing by for a quick look, help if its possible, then get back to their "real-world" activities. Unfortunately, in between visits, its easy to miss a few hundred posts - because the forum software isn't able to tell a member which posts they haven't viewed yet.

As mentioned by Nachtwind, I also think a very large number of issues would be resolved by upgrading to SMF. Unfortunately there are issues migrating from flat-file Yabb, to mySql SMF, but hopefully an upgrade is a matter of when, rather than "if".

SMF hosts a variety of options that are compatible with many of the suggestions made in this thread, but I'm not sure if this thread is being read by those who are in control of the Yabb software, or even if they've considered an upgrade would be of benefit to the community.

So it might be nice to hear the thoughts of Arduino's present moderators, and if this discussion has the potential to bring about much needed change.

I consider the refusal to answer a question asked, by someone seeking help, as bad manners.

Hmm. Not in a forum context, I think. It would be incredibly worse if everyone who didn't know the answer posted a polite "I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer to your question." The sort of "question tracking" you're implying should exist is characteristic of a "customer support" organization with paid employees and a lot of infrastructure. I guess google code and/or Sourceforge has provisions for bug/question tracking, and might be bent into such a purpose, but in my experience you're less likely to to get meaningful responses there than in Arduino forum anyway, even to real bugs.

kevin, I am sorry to say that your ignorance of proper manner in a mature forum such as this is no excuse for your somewhat inappropriate activity on here, and although I am not to fond of pointing specific people out, I must say that those who have admonished some of your behavior probably had the right to do so (and with good intentions, of course)